Dylann Roof, the shooter who was found guilty in the murder of nine people praying at a black church in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 2015, was condemned to death after a jury of his peers deliberated on the sentence for just three hours.
The same jury last month found Roof, 22, guilty of 33 federal charges, including hate crimes resulting in death, for the shootings at the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
WCNC reports Roof, who was 18 at the time of the murders, showed no response to the reading of the verdict. Roof told the jury, “I still feel like I had to do it,” before they deliberated on a sentencing verdict, according to ABC News.
Before they headed into deliberations, Roof told the jury he still feels he had no choice. “In my confession to the FBI I told them that I had to do it, and obviously that’s not really true. … I didn’t have to do anything,” Roof said as he made his own five-minute closing argument in the penalty phase of his federal trial. “But what I meant when I said that was, I felt like I had to do it, and I still do feel like I had to do it.”
But he also suggested he’d like to be spared. “From what I’ve been told, I have a right to ask you to give me a life sentence, but I’m not sure what good that will do anyway,” Roof said. “But what I will say is only one of you has to disagree with the other jurors.”
His statement followed a prosecutor’s impassioned, two-hour argument in a Charleston courtroom urging jurors to give Roof the death penalty instead of their other option, life in prison without possibility of parole.
Roof, an avowed white supremacist, shot and killed nine people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston in June 2015. Jurors convicted him last month of federal murder and hate crimes charges.
The prosecution and defense rested in the penalty phase on Monday, bringing to a close days of heartbreaking testimony from family and friends of victims who were killed. Prosecutors argued that he’s a calculating killer who deserves the death penalty because of his motive, his lack of remorse and the shooting’s impact on the victims’ families.
This article appeared at ZeroHedge.com at: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-10/charleston-church-shooter-dylann-roof-sentenced-death